How is industry achieving this?

Already efficient...but room for improvement

The aviation industry has made significant progress in fuel and CO2 efficiency, halving the amount of fuel used per flight compared to 1990. In other words, your flight today would generate just 50% the CO2 compared to the same flight back in 1990. This has been achieved through technological advancement and improvements in operations and infrastructure.

Overall emissions from aviation have risen though, as the volume of air traffic (both passenger and cargo) has increased. Most growth has occurred in emerging economies, as they begin to reap the benefits of air travel.

Trade and tourism are important drivers of global economic development, and as more people become affluent, their appetite to travel the world increases. The industry's climate action framework is designed to help find the balance between the two goals - economic growth through connectivity, and reduction of climate impact.

Pillars of the industry's climate action strategy

The industry's three global climate goals are underpinned by several pillars of climate action:

Technological innovation

Each new generation of aircraft is roughly 15% to 20% more fuel efficient, and manufacturers invest around $15 billion per year in research intro greater efficiency. In the future, we may even be able to fly on electric or hybrid aircraft on short-haul flights.

Sustainable aviation fuels

Sustainable aviation fuels have great potential for securing the sustainable growth of air travel as they could reduce CO2 emissions by around 80% compared with fossil fuels, without the need to radically change the fuel supply systems or engines of aircraft.

Operational improvements

We're making the current fleet lighter and more efficient and using new air traffic control techniques to save emissions. For example, landing using a continuous descent into an airport saves at least 150kg of CO2 per flight. Adding wingtip devices to an aircraft can reduce fuel use by 4%.

Infrastructure efficiencies

Market-based measures

Economic measures are a part of our strategy until technology and more efficient operations achieve our targets. We are working with governments to design a global market-based measure that accounts for emissions only once, ensuring passengers do not face multiple layers of taxation.